Well, I'm last to the 2011 Spektrum Off Road Championships race report party, but I want to start off by saying thanks to Brad Krans, Steve Bartolotti and JB Catricala for travelling GREAT distances to attend this race! It was great to see Brad come "home" to Wisconsin and have some fun and great to meet Steve and JB from the Toronto, Ontario area (about a 10 hour drive).

All day Thursday and Friday morning controlled practice allowed racers to get ample track time. I had two or three race days on this layout so I was comfortable out of the gate in practice and in the first qualifier on Friday evening.

Here is the breakdown of qualifying and mains for my two classes entered for the weekend...

2WD modified buggy

With an early entry count of over 100 mod buggies, 94 drivers ended up qualifying for the weekend. A 17-lap/5:15 first qualifier would put my 44th going into Saturday. The track was dusty being in the final race (45!) of the night, but I had a good overall run.

A 16 lap/5:00 and 5:05 in the second and third rounds respectively would put me down to 69th place overall. Quite disappointed in my driving, I still had one round to go. I ended on a good note in my final qualifier for 4WD mod buggy (explained below), so not all was lost here in 2WD. A strong final run of 17 laps/5:09 would jump me from 69th to 48th overall after 4 rounds. What a redemption run!

The tone started for the E Main and some nerves got the best of me. Still on a 17 lap pace, local racer and friend Mikey Dibb and I had a good battle and some rough laps to finish off the race.

4WD modified buggy

4WD mod buggy was up first on Friday with 4 heats of 8-9 cars each. A very clean run of 18 laps/5:01 put me 9th overall after the first round of qualifying. I had taken a long 9-month break from 4WD buggy and this run really helped my confidence with my TRF511.

Two mediocre 18 lap runs in rounds 2 and 3 bumped me down to the B-Main resorts, but my confidence was not lost as we still had one more round of qualifying to go late on Saturday night. Steve and I were in the same B-Main resort in this final round of qualifying and we both had very good starts to the qualifier. Near the end of the 5-minute session, we were very close in time and on track! I finished with a 18 lap/5:06 time to Steve's 18/5:05 which would put me 7th place in our qualifier to his 5th. First through my 7th place were seperated by about 8 seconds, so about a HALF lap! Very fast and clean running for everyone! After that last run, I would be seeded 15th of 32 overall and starting 5th in the B Main.

The B Main would be a little rough for me. Starting in 5th of 10 cars, I could get no higher than 6th and finished in 7th with a 17 lap run. Steve started one position ahead of me, put his head down and finished this B Main in 2nd! Excellent run for Steve and his TRF502!

Lastly, both of my TRF201 and TRF511 setups are listed in the setups section here at the Team TRF site. One note on them is I ran JConcepts Bar Codes in blue compound all weekend. So, that sums up the weekend and I'd like to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas season and all the best in 2012! Thanks again to Fred and Sarah at Tamiya America for the support!

Source:

Aaron Reichow